Use Of Self-handicapping Strategies Research Articles

Autossabotagem e trajetória acadêmica de estudantes de graduação da área de Negócios

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of using self-handicapping strategies on the academic path of undergraduate Business students. Previous studies have analyzed the effects of self-handicapping behavior on academic performance, thus not reflecting on a broader scope such as academic path. Therefore, analyzing the effect of self-handicapping on the academic path, based on a construct that represents academic life, makes it possible to highlight its impacts on major elements that, together, comprise the building of the students' path, such as: university setting, commitment to the course, student skills, involvement in course activities, study conditions, and academic achievement. Self-handicapping is associated with high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, and procrastination. So, assessing the effects of self-handicapping on the education of prospective organizational managers is especially important, as the consequences of continued use of self-handicapping strategies may go beyond the academic setting and affect social and affective issues of these people. Motivated by their views, beliefs, and stereotypes, which lead them to self-handicapping behavior, business leaders and managers can take actions that generate losses and frustrations in situations that require an assertive position in decisions taken in the organizational setting. This prevents the achievement of optimal solutions, which may result in economic bankruptcy and non-compliance with organizational goals and results. In this way, grasping the effect of self-handicapping on the academic path of students in the Business area creates conditions to mitigate it during their education, preventing the results of its continued use from going beyond the university setting and also causing losses in the corporate setting. A survey was carried out with students enrolled in six undergraduate courses in the Business area of a federal public university in southern Brazil. The sample had the participation of 212 undergraduate students and data analysis took place by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results point out a moderate presence of self-handicapping behavior in research participants and confirm the hypothesis that self-handicapping negatively affects the academic path of undergraduate Business students. This effect tends to be greater among students over 25 years of age and among male students. Even with a moderate presence of self-handicapping behavior among the students under analysis, its effect on the academic path was negative and significant, which suggests that in samples with rather self-handicapping individuals, the academic path tends to be even more impacted.

Estratégias autoprejudiciais dos estudantes em um curso de Matemática

Abstract Self-handicapping strategies can be defined as individuals’ behaviors or statements, which happen before an important task is performed and work as an excuse to justify a likely poor performance. The use of these strategies can harm the academic performance of students at all levels. The current article presents a case study about the use of self-handicapping strategies carried out with twenty undergraduate Mathematics students from a Brazilian public university. Data collection was based on the application of a Likert-type scale and on a focus group conducted with students. Scale data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, whereas group discussions were subjected to qualitative analysis. Results have shown that most students do not significantly engage in self-handicapping behaviors. Difficulties to manage time and to prepare for academic activities, such as tests, were the reasons most often presented as justification for such an engagement. Data have also pointed out the need of rethinking the role played by teachers and by the atmosphere they promote in the classroom as factors that can contribute to the use, or not, of these strategies by students. Future research may help improving knowledge on these matters.

Perceived parental involvement and student engagement with homework in secondary school: The mediating role of self-handicapping

Research in the field of homework has confirmed the significant association between students’ perceptions of their parents’ involvement and their motivation and engagement with these tasks. In this study we analyzed the possible mediating role of self-handicapping strategies in the relationship between perceptions of parental support (content-oriented and autonomy-oriented support) when doing homework and the students’ behavioral engagement (time spent, effort made, amount of homework done, level of procrastination). The participants were 643 students in compulsory secondary education (between 7th and 10th grade). The results showed that the lower the perceptions of support from parents when doing homework, the greater the students’ use of self-handicapping strategies and the worse their behavioral engagement (less effort, less amount of homework done, more procrastination) and vice versa. These findings seem to indicate that self-handicapping is a motivational strategy that would partially explain students’ poor behavioral engagement with homework in the absence of parental support.

The effects of school anxiety on self-esteem and self-handicapping in pupils attending primary school

School anxiety appears to be related to self-esteem and self-handicapping strategies. This study aims at identifying children with atypical levels of anxiety and examining the relationship between their self-esteem at school and their use of self-handicapping strategies. The sample included 120 pupils (M = 8.6 years) attending third grade of primary school and was divided into three groups: pupils with low anxiety, average anxiety and high anxiety. Children were administered the Scale for Evaluation of Anxiety (SAFA A), the TMA - Multidimensional test of Self-esteem- and the Self-Handicapping Scale for Children. On the whole, results demonstrate a nearly normative distribution of school anxiety in a nonclinical sample. Pupils with an average level of school anxiety showed a higher level of Self-esteem and engaged more in self-handicapping strategies. The developmental perspective suggests the importance of preventive research in order to identify any risk factors of subsequent anxiety disorders at an early age.

Self-Regulated Learning in Students of Pedagogy1

Self-regulated learning is the process by which students plan, monitor and regulate their own learning. The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between motivation to learn, implicit theories of intelligence and self-handicapping strategies, and to examine the association of these variables in the prediction of the use of learning strategies in students of Pedagogy. The sample consisted of 107 Pedagogy students of two private universities of a city of São Paulo state. Data were collected using four Likert-type scales. Multivariate linear regression analyses revealed that participants with higher scores in the Learning Strategies Scale also presented significantly higher scores in intrinsic motivation and fewer reports of use of self-handicapping strategies. Higher scores in metacognitive strategies were significantly associated with both intrinsic an extrinsic motivation and with fewer reports of use of self-handicapping strategies. Results are discussed in terms of the contribution of Psychology to teacher education.

Les stratégies d’auto-handicap : fondements théoriques, déterminants et caractéristiques

Self-handicapping strategies that were first described by Berglas and Jones (1978) consist in creating the existence of obstacles or proclaiming those obstacles (Leary & Shepperd, 1986) before an assessment or an achievement situation that could threaten the self (Snyder & Smith, 1982). The scientific works on these strategies are based on different theoretical frameworks and are particularly varied mainly because of their multiple manifestations. The purpose of the present article is to review the literature in order to identify the converging elements of the theories that are most often used to account for the use of self-handicapping strategies, namely attributional theories, self-presentation theory, and achievement goals theories. The analysis of theoretical foundations and characteristics of self-handicapping strategies allows then to highlight the central role of self-esteem and presents an original approach to understand the process operated by users.

小学生の体育学習における動機づけモデルの検討：動機づけ雰囲気の認知，学習動機，および方略使用の関連

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among perceived motivational climate, learning motives, and strategy use in school physical education classes. A set of inventories was administered to 246 fifth and sixth grade pupils attending elementary schools. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that perceptions of mastery-oriented and cooperative motivational climate were associated with pupils' mastery-oriented learning motives, which were in turn related positively to strategy use. Furthermore, perceptions of performance motivational climate were associated with performance-oriented and work avoidance learning motives, which were positively related to the use of self-handicapping strategies. These results suggest that students' perception of mastery-oriented and cooperative motivational climate are more related to adaptive motivational patterns of physical education learning than is the case for perceptions of performance motivational climate. The role of perceptions of motivational climate in promoting the learning motives of pupils and strategy use in physical education classes is discussed.

Perfectionism, Implicit Theories of Intelligence, and Taiwanese Eighth-Grade Students’ Academic Engagement

ABSTRACT The authors attempted to examine how Taiwanese junior high school students’ perfectionistic tendencies and implicit theories of intelligence were related to their academic emotions and approach versus avoidance self-regulation, and to determine differences in contingent self-worth, emotions, and self-regulation among students with different subtypes of perfectionism. A total of 481 8th-grade Taiwanese students completed a self-reported survey assessing their perfectionistic tendencies, implicit theories of intelligence, academic emotions, behavioral self-regulation, and use of self-handicapping strategies. Results suggested that adaptive perfectionism enabled adolescents to experience positive emotions and to engage in behavioral self-regulation, whereas maladaptive perfectionism was positively associated with negative emotions and self-handicapping. In addition, the incremental theory of intelligence predicted positive affect and constructive coping. By contrast, the entity theory was positively correlated with negative emotions and self-handicapping. The authors also documented profiles of students with different perfectionistic tendencies. Findings showed that in general adaptive perfectionists displayed the healthiest emotions and self-regulatory styles. Implications for education and further research are discussed.

Effects of Self-Handicapping Strategies on Anxiety before Athletic Performance

The purpose of the present experiment was to examine whether the use of selfhandicapping strategies influences participants’ anxiety levels before athletic performance. Seventy-one competitive basketball players participated in the study. A repeated measures design was used, such that state cognitive and somatic anxiety intensity and direction were measured before and after participants were given the opportunity to self-handicap. Overall, participants reported their cognitive anxiety to be more facilitating after they had the opportunity to self-handicap. Thus, participants who were given the opportunity to self-handicap (i.e., use claimed and behavioral self-handicaps), reported greater increases in perceptions of cognitive anxiety as facilitating their performance. This study shows the importance of looking at anxiety direction, and not just anxiety intensity, when examining self-handicapping’s effects on anxiety. Implications for sport psychologists are proposed.

Achievement Goals, Self-Handicapping, and Performance Attainment: A Mediational Analysis

The present experiment was designed to examine the mediational role of self-handicapping in the relationship between achievement goals and performance on a sport-based activity (i.e., a basketball dribbling task). The achievement goals of the trichotomous achievement goal framework were manipulated, behavioral and self-reported self-handicapping opportunities were provided, and performance attainment was assessed. Performance-avoidance goals led to worse performance and evoked higher levels of behavioral and self-reported self-handicapping than performance-approach and mastery goals. Both forms of self-handicapping were found to have independent mediational effects on decreased performance. Implications for the adoption of achievement goals and the use of self-handicapping strategies are discussed.

Academic Self-Handicapping and Achievement Goals: A Further Examination

This study extends previous research on the relations among students' personal achievement goals, perceptions of the classroom goal structure, and reports of the use of self-handicapping strategies. Surveys, specific to the math domain, were given to 484 7th-grade students in nine middle schools. Personal performance-avoid goals positively predicted handicapping, whereas personal performance-approach goals did not. Personal task goals negatively predicted handicapping. Perceptions of a performance goal structure positively predicted handicapping, and perceptions of a task goal structure negatively predicted handicapping, independent of personal goals. Median splits used to examine multiple goal profiles revealed that students high in performance-avoid goals used handicapping more than did those low in performance-avoid goals regardless of the level of task goals. Students low in performance-avoid goals and high in task goals handicapped less than those low in both goals. Level of performance-approach goals had little effect on the relation between task goals and handicapping.

Motivation and cheating during early adolescence.

The relations of motivational variables to self-reported cheating behaviors and beliefs in science were examined in a sample of early adolescents. It was hypothesized that cheating and beliefs in the acceptability of cheating would be more likely when students perceived an emphasis on performance and extrinsic incentives rather than on mastery and improvement. Results indicated that students who reported cheating in science perceived their classrooms as being extrinsically focused and perceived their schools as being focused on performance and ability. Students who believed in the acceptability of cheating also reported personal extrinsic goals and a perceived emphasis on extrinsic factors in class. Students who reported cheating also worried about school. The reported use of deep cognitive strategies was related negatively and the use of self-handicapping strategies was related positively to cheating beliefs and behaviors. Why do some adolescents engage in cheating behaviors, whereas others do not? What are the motivational variables related to cheating during adolescence? The present study examines relations between motivational variables and selfreported cheating beliefs and behaviors in a sample of early adolescents.

The Role of Classroom Goal Structure in Students’ Use of Self-Handicapping Strategies

Some students purposefully use self-handicapping strategies (e.g., procrastinating, fooling around, getting involved in many activities) so that these circumstances, rather than lack of ability, will be seen as the cause if subsequent performance is low. The aim of the present study was to determine whether we could reliably assess fifth-grade students’ reports of their use of self-handicapping strategies and to examine individual- and classroom-level predictors of self-handicapping. Surveys were given to 646 fifth-grade students. The handicapping items formed a single factor with good internal consistency. Handicapping varied significantly across classrooms. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found that boys used handicapping more than girls did and students’ grade point average and perceived academic competence were negatively related to handicapping. Students’ perceptions of an emphasis on relative ability in the classroom (ability goal structure) as well as teachers’ reported use of instructional practices that highlight relative ability were positively related to handicapping. Implications for practice are discussed.

The Role of Classroom Goal Structure in Students' Use of Self-Handicapping Strategies

The Role of Classroom Goal Structure in Students' Use of Self-Handicapping Strategies

Predictors of Middle School Students' Use of Self-Handicapping Strategies

Recently, attention has been focused on the strategies children use in school to portray themselves as able to others. By procrastinating, allowing others to keep them from studying, deliberately not trying, and using other "self-handicapping" strategies, students can convey that those circumstances, rather than lack of ability, are the reasons for subsequent poor performance. Survey data from 256 eighth-grade students indicated that boys used those strategies more than did girls, and low achievers more than did high achievers. In separate regressions, feeling self-conscious in school low self-worth& being oriented to extrinsic and adult approval achievement goals, perceiving that the school emphasized performance goals, and associating with friends with a negative orientation toward academics predicted the use of those strategies. When all significant predictors were entered into one regression analysis, low achievement, being oriented to extrinsic goals, and associating with friends with a negative orientation toward academics remained significant.

Group Effects and Self-Handicapping

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship of group cohesion to self-handicapping. The first issue focused on the relationship between the personality trait of self-handicapping and perceptions of group cohesion. A significant negative relationship (p < .001) was found between individual differences in the self-handicapping trait of making excuses and perceptions of the group's task cohesiveness. The second issue focused on whether group cohesion serves to moderate the relationship between the trait of self-handicapping and the use of self-handicapping strategies. The results showed that social cohesion was a significant (p < .006) moderator between the tendency to make excuses and the use of self-handicapping strategies. When social cohesion was high, the tendency to make excuses was positively related to the degree to which impediments to preparation for competition were perceived to be present.